THE SO-CALLED THIRD USE OF THE LAW

This article will explore the commonly accepted idea that the Law of God, or simply law in general, has as one of its ‘usages’ the ability to guide the Christian in his ongoing life of sanctification. We will argue that at salvation when the Spirit invades the believer’s life, the category of law with regard to this new man becomes unnecessary, irrelevant and even harmful.

We begin by saying that theologians have forever grappled with the very fact that the law of God exists. What exactly is law? Why was the law given? Was there law in the pristine world of eternity past? That is, is law an eternal principle (lex aeterna), an inherent attribute of God, or is law a child of the existential reality of sin? The modern theological debate about law takes it from the humanly constructed distinction of law into three usages. After all is said and done, the debate centers around two questions: first, “Is the law actually a transitive verb that can effect change in the believer’s life, or is it merely a static concept?” and second, if we adopt the first option then we must ask, “Can the law have more than one purpose, or usage as it relates to man?” To set the stage let us describe the current theological scenery. Among most orthodox theologians the law of God is divided into these three aforementioned usages, civil, theological and corrective. That is, the law given by God plays different roles (i.e. has a different effect) depending where it lands. This first use is the civil use, which highlights the fact that law (not merely God’s law but ALL law) curbs human rebellion and makes for a sane, orderly existence on earth. In other words the law has a way of keeping or restraining the sinful nature of man, enabling humans to act civilly with each other so that unrestrained sin does not annihilate the race altogether (as in the days preceding the flood). This is Paul’s meaning in 1 Tim 1:8-9. “For we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person but for the lawless, and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers…” The law, any law handed down by an authority does have the effect of curbing unbridled sin for fear of punishment, ensuring continuance of the human species. This is Paul’s meaning in Galatians 3:19 when he asks ‘why the law?’ To which he answers, ‘it was added because of transgressions.’ Without going into a full-blown exposition of Galatians 3:19-25, let me just digress for a moment and say that in Paul’s mind the giving of the Law to the nation Israel was to keep them as an identifiable ethnic entity and keep them separate from the nations around. The reason, according to Paul, was to preserve the Messiah line. Paul uses the illustration that the law is like a pedagogue, a hired watchdog of the day who kept young men in the Hellenistic culture from self-destructing before their received their inheritance. The Apostle says, “therefore the law was our tutor (pedagogue) to (to the time of) Christ.” In Paul’s mind the law didn’t drive men to Christ, or do anything relating to salvation. It merely kept the messianic line pure until the Messiah came. That is what we mean by the first use of the law. For the most part, no one disagrees with this use of the law. To see how this works, one need merely look at the world around and envision what it would be like were there no law at all. We would be back in Judges where every man was doing ‘what was right in his own eyes.’ Without law we would live in a very unstable and violent world. Imagine an America where there are no speed limits and no police officers to uphold those limits. Imagine if the government said, ‘now everybody please drive according to what you determine to be safe.’ It would be total chaos and dangerous. Law therefore is that which keep humanity from self-destruction.

Theologians also describe a second use of the law which most agree is the most important use of the law. This is the theological use. Here the law is nothing more than a mirror which only serves to threatens us, condemns us, and magnify our misery before God. As with the first ‘usage’ it doesn’t really do anything. It simply stands in the middle of the street and shouts ‘you’re on the wrong path!’ The law reveals to us what we are by nature; law breakers and God haters. However what the law can never do is supply a solution to the problem. It reveals who we are but can never change us. It is the mirror in the bathroom which shows you how unkempt you are but can do nothing to make you prettier. So the little ditty,

‍ ‍“Run, John, run. The law commands but gives neither feet nor hands.

Better news the gospel brings; It bids me fly and gives me wings.”

All the major Christian denominations would agree with this usage of the law; Roman Catholic, Reformed, Wesleyan, Orthodox, Charismatics, etc. So there is no further discussion needed there.

It is how the law is ‘used’ after conversion that has become a hotbed issue in our day. Many label this post conversion function of the law as ‘third use of the law.’ We devote the remainder of this article to evaluate this usage.

The nature of the third use of the law is described in different ways. What unites them all is that it ascribes to law an ability to do something positive in the Christian’s sanctification, that is, in his his post conversion life. One common belief is that the law not only reveals one’s sinfulness but actually drives the sinner to Christ for salvation. In other words, the law does something to change the direction of the believer’s life. Proponents use Galatians 3:24, the pedagogue text, as the prooftext. But as have previously argued that is not the meaning of the text. And we ask, if one says the law drives men to Christ, does this reflect reality? Does the law really do more than reveal one’s sin? Can it actually do anything? Take the illustration of those construction barriers one finds in the middle of a highway. As you approach these barriers you quickly realize that you must turn off the road or crash. Now did the barrier help you turn the wheel of your vehicle? Did it give you the ability to swerve? Did it give you counsel of what you must do? I ask, did it assist you in any way? No, no, and no. The barrier was nothing more than an existential warning that showed you, the driver, that you were in a dangerous place. The barrier was an immobile warning. Nothing more. Whether you moved aside or not had nothing to do with the barrier itself.

Move this into the theological realm. The law stands before mankind as a warning sign that we are sinners. But does that same law actually give them the strength to turn? Is the law the instrument to change behavior? The answer is no. How many people crash headlong into the law despite its clear message? Yet we repeatedly hear that the law moves people to Christ. What tricks many into thinking this is because of poorly chosen terminology. We call it ‘a use of the law.’ But the word ‘use’ implies some inherent ability. It implies that the law is a user; an active agent. And if the law can use something then it must have a purpose and a goal. But where does the bible teach that the law has a goal? So we ask again, what is law really? Isn’t it a static entity, a reflector of the nature of God that exists because of the existence of sin? In this sense, law is like truth. Truth would be a meaningless concept in a perfect world. Truth only has meaning if there is a error. The same with law. Law exists because there is sin. That is to say the law is an existential reality that has meaning, its raison d’etre, only because sin came into the world. As truth exists because of the reality for error, so law exists because of the reality of sin.

That means in a context where there is no sin, there need not be any law. I ask the reader, is there any need for law in a perfect universe? And once you answer that you can deal with the second question which is, ‘does this situation ever exist?’ I think the answer to the first is obvious. If there was a world of absolute perfection where there was no sin or inclination to sin, there would be no such concept of law. ‘Law’, the citizens would ask, ‘what is law?’ As to the second part of the question, ‘does this situation ever exist’, here we must return to the very essence of the gospel and ask, ‘what kind of world does the gospel create?’ The hallmark of the Reformation was justification by faith alone. In layman’s terms that means when God saves a sinner He ascribes to that sinner a perfect righteousness. I mean perfect, as perfect as Jesus Himself without spot, or wrinkle or any such thing. The Reformers asserted that the gospel actually makes a sinner perfect. In justification God looks at the believing sinner through the merits of Christ and sees no speck of sin in him whatsoever. And because Christ cannot sin, there is no potentiality to sin either. The saint dwells in perfect righteousness. So in Romans 4:5 Paul boldly declares; ‘but to him who works not but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.’ As hard as that is to believe (and it is), the sinner who is attached to Christ by faith dwells in a realm of perfection. If that is the case then what happens to the law? Paul answers, ‘for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God’ (Gal 2:19), and, ‘therefore my brethren you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another — to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God’ (Rom 7:4). The believer died to the law and is dead to the law? What do these verses mean but that the law no longer exists for the one who is now justified in Christ. Why? Because there is no sin. Through faith, the law in the life of the believer as been relegated to oblivion. Theologians like Gehard Forde and Steven Paulson have argued that this is the meaning behind Romans 10:4, ‘for Christ is the END of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.’ Could the word ‘telos’ here mean ‘end’ in its common usage (as in Mt 10:22), meaning that the law comes to an abrupt conclusion when the righteousness of Christ covers the sinner? Or is Paul saying that the law’s trajectory leads it to be fulfilled in Christ yet still retains its identity. Galatians 4:5 and other texts seem to support this first meaning. That verse says Christ ‘redeemed those who were under (the) law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’. In other words the believer has purchased out of his old domain of slavery and been brought into a new world of being in God’s family. Col 1:13 says that believers have been ‘delivered from the power of darkness and conveyed into the kingdom of the Son’. In other words upon salvation the believer is put into an entirely new world, a world of perfection in Christ, a world, where the handwriting of the requirements of law has been fully removed because there is no more sin (Col 2:14). So when the believer is removed to this new world does law follow him and still declare its authority? Yes, it tries, but it has no authority because there is no sin. Does the state have any further authority over a foster child once the child is placed into a family? In other words is there any more purpose, and more use, of law when the believer has entered the perfect world of being ‘in Christ’? That is the question.

For sure, the debate is deeper than whether or not the law drives a sinner to Christ. The debate is whether or not the law even exists in the new creation? Its not whether the law has a different role to play, but whether the law even exists. Those who see the law as an abiding reality in the life of the believer follow close the words of the storied Westminster Confession of Faith:

‘Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it drects and binds them to walk accordingly’ (WCF XIX; 7; emphasis mine).

This is the majority view. The law directs and binds Christians to walk accordingly. Westminster no doubt believes that the law is an active agent that has a real ‘use’ in the life of the believer. But we ask again, does the law really direct Christians to walk accordingly?

To get at a new way of looking at this issue, we begin by re-evaluating the first use of the law. This first use of the law keeps mankind from recklessly overflowing the boundaries of civil behavior. The Adamic nature is stubborn but when threatened by punishment it often bends. Law rules our world and it should. But remember the fact there is law is proof positive that there is sin in the world. If a child is told not to steal it is because that stealing is a theoretical possibility and the child has a natural proclivity to do just that. But notice, when humans bend to the threat of law through fear this reaction neither leads to righteousness or is a result of righteousness. It simply prevents sinners from going outwardly insane. Obedience to the law in this sense merely creates people like Saul of Tarsus, the Pharisees and the Rich Young Ruler. They were obedient to the law but yet they were woefully guilty before God. The fact of the matter is that obedience to this first use of the law cannot lead one to righteousness, and, in fact, has the effect of deepening of one’s depravity; that is, in a strange way, obedience to this first use actually increases sin (see Romans 5:20). Apart from a prevenient work of the Spirit, the law does nothing for the Adamic man but scare him into a false righteousness which scares him farther and farther from God. It gives him a false sense of self-sufficiency. It gives them ‘peace, peace, where there is no peace.’

Notice if you will that the first and second ‘usages’ (or effects) of the law are quite similar. The law comes and aggravates but does not save. For the man left to himself, the law simply gets in the way of his wicked desires, or scares him into forced compliance. But in neither scenario does it change the man or bring him closer to God.

All this brings us back to the question at hand; does the law guide the Christian life? Or, to ask it another way, does the law actually do any good for the spiritual man? Well, for several reasons the author says emphatically no! First we have an ontological objection. If we agree that the law is that which reveals sin, then how can the very thing that reveals sin have the ability to mortify it? In other words, can the law both stir up sin and also curb it? Can a virus both harm the body and heal it? If sin is a mirror that shows us something bad then can that same mirror show us something good? A child is frightened by a bogey man in the closet and is terrified. Do we allay that child’s fears by allowing them to encounter this monster? If a rope snapped the last time we used it, would we try to climb up it again in the hopes that it will hold us? Yet the tragedy we find in many churches is that many Christians are told to go back to the law to try to find healing and peace of mind when it was the law that destroyed them in the place. Much of this schizophrenic use of the law is found in preaching. Many preachers proclaim the gospel of God’s free gift and then in order to keep people from being too comforted in the perfect standing, they revert to a law based sermon and dismiss the sheep in a state of confusion. Every Sunday there are sermons that follow this pattern: ‘Christ saved you and did all the work of salvation and now you need to do….should do…… ought to do…… must do, such and such.’ Millions walk out of Sunday services every week wondering if they are truly saved because they have been told that the thing that killed them is also the thing that can help them. So confusion, doubt and lack of assurance reign throughout the pews of American evangelicalism.

Second, as we have argued earlier, the word ‘use’ in third use of the law, implies that the law is a ‘user’. That is, the law is an active agent that does something. But does it? A signpost does not help us to reach the destination. A prescription does not heal our symptoms. A siren does not fix the emergency. The law is static, a powerless entity that shows us the sad reality of our substandard behavior. It is like gravity, a fixed, immoveable fact that itself does nothing. And because the law does nothing, it never takes the rap for our disobedience. The law does not make us sin, nor does it make us more righteous. The law simply is. Yet in many Christian circles the law is seen as a positive aid, a guide to our sanctification. And so Christians by the score turn back again to the thing that they died to long ago.

Third, the law represents a prior dispensation in the way God dealt with sinful Israel and that age ended with the advent of the Messiah. In other words, the law once governed the people of God in the Old Covenant, but in the New Covenant, the law no longer is needed. Remember, the law came to Israel as a stabilizer to a fledgling nation. When when the fullness of time came in, and God sent His Son, the people of God were now ruled by His Spirit. Thus, the law, like an old garment, fell away. In Paul’s words, when faith came, there was no longer need for the tutor. The Book of Hebrews acknowledges this transition quite clearly. Speaking to Jewish Christians who were still clinging to the Law the writer quotes the New Covenant promise given in Jeremiah chapter 31 (cp. Heb 10:8-12). His point is that why are you remaining under law when the Old Covenant itself predicts its own demise and that now that Christ has come, the Old Covenant is ‘becoming obsolete and growing old’ and ‘is ready to vanish away.’ In 70 AD the final stroke came against the Old Covenant when Jerusalem and the Temple were obliterated by the Roman army. This was God’s historic confirmation of what had already happened in Jesus Christ. When John the Baptist comes on the scene heralding this new age of Messiah he exhorts the people to “repent” (think differently) about everything for a new kingdom is at hand. This was not an invitation to mesh the Old Covenant Law with New Covenant grace, but rather to bring about a complete replacement. Thus, Jesus represented the New Covenant as new wine which cannot be put into old wineskins (the Old Covenant). New wineskins are needed (see Mt 9:16-17). Now of course we know that the age of grace has always been God’s ultimate plan. Which further proves that law was God’s temporary guardian until the Spirit would come into the church with power. The law was real, even useful, but was always intended to be a shadow pointing to the better age to come (Heb 10:1). The implication is staggering. The New Covenant age has come the so law has been rendered obsolete and dead to the saint. Those washed in the blood of Jesus have been made perfect and ‘completely clean’ as Jesus said to Peter (John 13:10), and where in a universe that is completely clean there no need for law. Yet so many Christians continue to cling to the fig leaves of law to make them acceptable before God.

Many have responded to this by saying law cannot end for it is eternal (lex aeterna). They base this on the fact that law is an intrinsic attribute of God. But the bible never says that. God is always just, but God is not always a Lawgiver. Law is a response to sin. It was given to reveal transgression (Gal 3:19). But where there is no transgression there need be no law. Law exists because of transgression just as scales exist because there is such a thing called gravity. Think of medicine. It exists only because there is sickness. Were there no disease would there be medicine? Of course not. So the law draws its identity from sin. And where there is no sin there is no law. Some will say, ‘aha! Wasn’t there law in the pristine Garden of Eden?’ To which I say, ‘aha, was the garden pristine? Wasn’t Satan there? Hadn’t sin already entered the universe when God told our parents not to eat of the tree? God gave Adam and Eve the law because sin was in the world and therefore sin was an existential possibility. God gave Adam and Eve that law in order to draw out sin and expose it, much like a magnet draws metal shavings. But the story goes on. God draw out sin by giving a law so that a Redeemer would come to save the race from sin (Rom 5:12). Understanding this gives us the true nature of the bible narrative. First creation; second; sin enters the world; third; by law sin is revealed; fourth; sin establishes the need for a Savior; fifth; the Savior dies under the law, defeats sin and bestows eternal life to His people who are now totally free from law. Law, then, is one cog in the eternal plan. And when the plan moves to a glorious conclusion, law ends.

So why then all the commands in he New Testament letters? If the law is powerless to change why do the apostles issue so many imperatives to the flock? This can get tricky and is a question worth addressing. Here we remind the reader of the great Lutheran doctrine of Simul Justus et Peccator. That is, the justified man is at the same time sinless saint and wretched sinner. Paul made this distinction clear; ‘and if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness’ (Rom 8:10; also Romans 7:13-25). Because believers have two natures, the law will have a different relationship to the Christian depending on what nature is being spoken of. For the ‘new man, which after God is ‘created in righteousness and true holiness’ (Eph 4:24), the law has no effect whatsoever. That man is energized by the Spirit of God and naturally abides by the law of God by an internal desire fueled by grace. Paul notes, ‘for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God’ (8:14). But never forget the Christian is also the old, incorrigible man of Adam, one who hates God’s law and loves to sin. For that man, the law must be used according to its first use to subdue it into civil obedience. The apostles understood that they were writing to complex people who could rise to feats of great obedience to God by the Spirit and could descend to the lowest depths of depravity. The new man responded to the grace of the gospel by the work of the Spirit and naturally respond in eagerness and joy. But the old man could only be moved under the threat of law, which is exactly what the law does in its first use. So the apostles give the saints at Corinth, Colossae, Philippi, etc, a good dose of law to reel in the old man so that he will act civilly and serve his neighbor. Let it be known that the commands of the epistles are not to spur on the new man to new heights of holiness, but to reel in the wayward tendencies of the old man.

So is there a third use of the law? Look at your life, Christian. Do you run to the commandments in order to serve God with joy and freedom? Or do you plead with the Spirit, rest on the Spirit, that He might enable you to serve, love and obey God from the heart? What actually energizes your Christian life? When you can answer that, you will immediately thank God that you are not under law which only increases the trespass and hardens the heart, but you are controlled by the Spirit who graciously bestows upon you the power to serve, love and obey God. The Christian must ever remind himself of this transformational truth, “for you are not under law but under grace.” Amen.